Social media channels have found their place in every aspect of our lives. As the volume of medical information in the digital world continues to grow, patients have become more reliant on online search platforms to find information about their healthcare providers.
This is representative of a larger shift within the healthcare ecosystem – from a provider-driven approach to a patient-driven structure.
It is more important than ever to understand how medical practitioners can leverage social media to get in front of their patients at the beginning of their journey. This gives healthcare professionals the edge and an opportunity to capture a higher market share.
The following are the best practices and important tips that every healthcare professional must utilize to leverage social media marketing and attract newer patients when engaging with the patient community.
Social Media Tips for Your Medical Practice
These tips are a great starting point for medical practitioners who still aren’t leveraging social media. In fact, anyone in the healthcare field must take these strategies into consideration to move their practice in the right direction.
1. Define Your Ideal Patient Audience
It is not possible to be everything to everybody, so avoid this common mistake. It is essential to understand the psychographics, demographics, and behavioral characteristics of your patient base. It is essential to create a focus-driven approach that is aligned with your patients’ needs and expectations.
The various social media networks available on the Internet offer a diverse user profiling based on education, age, and income. The right social media network for your practice is where your target audience spends most of their time. Understand the patient audience that you are trying to reach and where they spend most of their time is the key to your success.
2. Create Social Media Accounts
Consumers rely heavily on available online medical information and use the Internet to gather data to connect with other patients. It is important to use the most popular social networks to distribute your social content. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are platforms that you can easily distribute branded content about your practice with links back to your website. Other social platforms such as Tik Tok and Snapchat require more interactive content and time investment to engage with your audience.
3. Maintain Consistency On Social Media Platforms
One of the biggest challenges is gaining and maintaining your social media account following. The quick fix is for healthcare professionals to purchase followers. Do not purchase followers. It is in your best interest to build an organic following.
In order to gain an organic following which authentically engages with your content, healthcare professionals must provide value and maintain consistency. A regular presence and consistent participation require time to develop. It is necessary to devote time, talent, and resources to make daily updates and postings. The best practice is to publish at least three to five times a week.
This will establish credibility for your medical practice among your patients. If you are not prepared to maintain the effort, social media will not help your practice.
4. Utilize Your Practice Website
A digital presence on social media for healthcare providers has the following benefits:
- Educating patients
- Creating opportunities for engagement
- Increasing your healthcare practice awareness
- Facilitating reviews and referrals
Another benefit of the use of social media is to increase traffic to your website, by offering reasons to click through rather than simply scrolling. It is important to have a blog on your medical practice website that offers relevant and timely information for your patients. Sharing informative posts with links to your website, along with a few words of text on social media, can bring more traffic to your website. It has been found that 41% of people agree that social media has the power to influence their choice of medical facility, doctor, or hospital.
5. Use Best Practices for Posting on Social Media
It is crucial to avoid social media disasters. These best practices should be followed when building social media profiles:
- Your social media marketing should be centered on your medical practices and showcase providers and employees.
- Develop social media policies. Even if it is informal, you should have a social media policy. Anyone managing your social media must be informed to never speak on behalf of your healthcare organization from their personal accounts or to negatively respond to comments.
- Automate your social media posts. The posts can be written in advance and scheduled for a later date through direct social media platforms or paid channels.
- If you don’t have the internal expertise or time, hire a professional medical marketing firm to manage your social media.
6. Build Reputation And Creditability In The Online World
It has been found that 8 out of 10 Internet users in the U.S. searching for health-related information use online mediums, and 74% of these prefer social media. Patients frequently return to their favorite social media channel to obtain information from their trusted sources.
Before choosing a medical provider, most patients check online reviews. If your medical practice doesn’t have any reviews, prospective patients are more likely to seek another provider. Therefore, the best way to attract traffic is by requesting patient feedback and generating positive reviews on authoritative sites and sharing them on your social media platforms and website.
7. Display Your Culture through Content
This can be done by posting putting up pictures of employee anniversaries or birthdays and adding pictures or video testimonials from satisfied patients. Social media allows medical practices to be more transparent and personal with their patients on social media. Behind-the-scenes content, such as a window into your practice’s day-to-day activities, are crucial for connecting with followers.
According to a study, 55% of healthcare services leverage social media to connect with like-minded patients. Healthcare businesses focus on relationship-building tactics on platforms, like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google.
Get Started
Social media has opened new possibilities for medical practices to connect with their patients. There is also tremendous potential for medical practitioners to increase their marketing reach and patient volume. The longer you wait to engage with patients on social platforms, the harder it will for your medical practice to catch up with your competitors who are already following the best practices.